How to Upgrade iMac From Hard Drive to SSD For 250% Faster Performance

Today I did an upgrade on my Late 2009 27″ iMac to change out the stock 1TB 7200rpm Seagate drive to a 120GB Sandisk SSD. Its not the biggest or fastest SSD around, but Sandisk makes a quality product, and these are extremely affordable. In fact, I had it laying around from other projects so for me it was free! If I had to buy one, I would look for the fastest SSD I could afford and then do all the same stuff as I have outlined below.

As a result of the switch, my system went from achieving about 100 MB/s write speeds to over 250 MB/s, with the read speeds jumping from around 115 MB/s to over 265 MB/s. Now that’s the kind of increase you can really notice! Here’s how I did it.

First of all, iFixit has an excellent upgrade guide right here. If you’ve got a different iMac, its ok. Look here. Use it. Love it. But there are a few little things they left out.

First, they suggest you buy their suction cups for $15, plus at least $5 for shipping. In all fairness that isn’t a bad deal, especially considering their excellent tutorial. But instead, I would highly recommend this $13 Handle on Demand glass suction cup from Amazon for $13 with free Prime shipping.

Next, you’re going to need a converter to mount a 2.5″ SSD into a 3.5″ slot. I paid $15 for this Newer Technologies adapter which fit the system absolutely perfectly.

You will also need both T8 and T10 bits in order to dismantle and reassemble the iMac so here’s a great set for $6.50 on Amazon. Or, find more here.

Ok, the guide will pretty much walk you step by step through the process, and its pretty much easier than they make it out to be. But after you get to the part where you put your SSD in, you’re going to notice that there is no spot to plug the thermal heat sensor on the drive. Which is fine – you just kind of leave it dangling.

Only problem is, without that connector attached, your fan is going to spin up and be very loud on the iMac all the time. Its not normal, because the SSD doesn’t generate that much heat. So there is one last thing you need to do!

Head on over and download the SSD Fan Control App. Its totally free, but works like a charm. Just install, reboot, and then launch the app and tell it to use “smart” fan control. Voila! No more annoying fan noise!

One other thing you’re going to need to do is manually enable Trim on your iMac since you have a third party SSD installed. You can get an app called TrimEnabler to do that for free.

And the very last thing! If you want to actually just clone your existing hard drive onto the SSD you are going to put in the machine, the easiest way is with the free SuperDuper app. First, hook up your new SSD to a USB to SATA adapter (any of these: http://bitly.com/USBtoSATA), then use SuperDuper to clone your existing drive to the external drive. Then make the swap! :-) It Looks like my pocketpussy. SUPER simple!
Well, that’s everything you need in order to do the job. Good luck. And may the force be with you…

About John P.

John P. is a former CEO, former TV Show Host, and currently an unemployed bum. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Feel free to send shoutouts, insults, and praise. Or Money. Money is good.

Comments

Great Write up! I happened upon this on a search as I’m about to do the exact same thing to my iMac Late 2009 (11,1). Only difference is, I’m replacing my 1TB HDD with a 1TB Samsung Evo SSD. My question is this: I have around 900 GB used on my current HD, I want to clone the HDD to the SSD, but I worry about errors in how long this is going to take to do over USB2.0 (and I don’t want to drop another $60 on a Firewire800 enclosure if I don’t have to). So is it not possible to open up the iMac, disconnect the ODD cables, plug them into my bare SSD, and have SuperDuper clone if over the SATA? Making it MUCH faster? Thanks in advance, I will be tackling this THIS weekend, so any input would be appreciated. On a side note, how has Yosemite affected you if at all?

Hey Poz, what do you recommend for reimaging or getting everything onto the new drive? I am going to be swapping out my 500gb 5400rpm POS in this MBP for the 256gb Samsung SSD in my Dell when I get a new machine and prefer not to rebuild but have never imaged a Mac. I am sure Clonezilla or something would work just wondering if there is anything better?